Blog 37 theknockerblog.com

The killing of El Rojo Grandes

It was a sleepy summer day in a quite rural neighborhood of River City the birds were singing. We had some rain that morning and the sun was again out and warming the day. The children were playing in the back yard. Our dog Sugar was herding the chickens around when she got a little rough with my prize hen Queenie.

Queenie was a tan bantam and quit a striking little hen. The boys in the chicken yard had many a dustup over her affections. During one of these dust ups ; King the Bard rock rooster mauled El Rojo Grandes My prize road Island red rooster pretty badly. I built a small 3X6 cage for him to recuperate in and had kept the two apart for several months. He was fit again but I had neglected to return him to the flock because the two birds would fight threw the fence from time to time

When the dog messed up the hen, we took her in the house and gave her a bath in the kitchen sink. She was pretty muddy and it took some doing to get her cleaned up again. After her bath we got out the hair dryer and soon she was all fluffed up and proud of herself. We took her back out on the deck and watched her for a while as she danced about on the deck. It was still a little muddy out from the morning rain so we decided to separate her from the others for a while until things dried up

I thought that I would put her in with El Rojo Grandes, The cage was large enough and what the heck Big Red had not had any company for three months. This would prove to be a huge mistake. I should have known better. I had been around chickens all my life and I knew all about the birds and the bees. And I was fully aware of what goes on in a barn yard.

Queenie Was looking good and El Rojo Grandes was tall and handsome in his regal red plumage as he passed back and forth within that cage. I looked over and thought to myself I’m going to put these two together. At that point it didn’t occur to me that that rooster might be just a bit nervous having been separated from the hens for three months not to mention King was probably teasing him about the hens being all his and stuff like that.

Well like the father of the bride I picked up Queenie gave her a hug walked her over to the cage and gave her to the groom. Before you could get, “with this ring” out of your mouth, Big Red sprang into action. He jumped on her did his thing and came off her so happy that he charged head long into the corner of the pen and broke his neck, falling dead in a heap, in the corner of the cage. I was stunned. The widow Queenie was on the other side of the cage shaking herself: Married and widowed in less than three seconds.

El Rojo Grandes ( Big Red) was no more.

Choices have consequences

S. Henry Knocker
the knockerblog,com